Visitor industry consultant wants to increase hiring of local talent

Keith Vieira considers it a success when his students are in tears on the first or second day of his Professional Development course at the University of Hawaii Shidler College of Business.

As Shidler’s executive-in-residence, Vieira said the tears are a result of students digging deep to tell their personal stories — stories he hopes will land them jobs.

“If you tell a story that explains why you’re a certain way, but more importantly what actions you take, an employer is going to be much more impressed than you saying, ‘I’m high-energy, I’m caring,’” said Vieira, who made his share of hires during 33 years with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, from which he retired in 2013 as senior vice president and director of operations for Hawaii and French Polynesia.

Vieira began his career at Sheraton in 1981, doing sales for a show at the Moana Surfrider. He gained more experience in sales, communications, marketing and development before becoming head of operations when Starwood acquired Sheraton in 1999. He was drawn to the worst-performing hotels, hoping to turn things around.

“If a hotel was running 50 percent (occupancy) and you could get them back on track to 80 or 90, then you and your team were performing well,” Vieira said.

In his “retirement,” Vieira, 60, splits his time between his own business, KV & Associates Hospitality Consulting, and the Shidler College of Business. He is on numerous boards of nonprofits and advocates for education — especially universal preschool, working with the Hawaii Children’s Action Network. Vieira says a preschool education is essential, and the field is no longer level by the third grade for students without one.

In his role at UH, he tries his best to prepare students for their careers. Students, he said, need more mentors. He said a bright student told him he wanted to be a flight attendant for Hawaiian Air.

“I’m thinking, ‘Why don’t you want to be CEO of Hawaiian Air?’ He doesn’t know anybody. They simply don’t have mentors,” Vieira said, noting he often tries to connect students with business leaders in their fields.

Vieira lives in Kahala with his wife. Jo Anne, and their son, Kekoa, who starts college this fall in Tacoma, Wash.

Question: Did you always know you wanted to be in the visitor industry?

Answer: I went to school (for a while) in Washington. I was escorting tours, bartending and working in nightclubs. It was a fun place to work. If you want to spend your career in Hawaii, you are going to be in the service industry of some sort. Why not be in the visitor industry? For me at the time, Sheraton was the largest. There was a movement in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s to get more locals in leadership positions. I think I had good timing. They were looking for aggressive locals with a University of Hawaii business degree. Stayed there 33 years.

Q: Did you have plans when you retired at the end of 2013?

A: You’re never really ready for things. You have to make yourself ready. My son was going to be a junior in high school. I wanted to enjoy his sports in his last two years. I knew I wanted to stay in the travel industry. I had a lot of key relationships with hotel owners, with the airline executives, travel distribution leaders. I also knew I wanted to spend a lot more time at the university (of Hawaii). I have two passions in education. One is early childhood ed. I can’t believe we’re one of 11 states that doesn’t fund early education. I am a big supporter of the university here. It amazes me that this is such an incredible institution and people dis it all the time. It’s crazy. One, it’s a huge financial engine. Two, it’s a very affordable means for our locals to get educated. …

When Shidler (College of Business) stepped up to provide some of the resources necessary, I wanted to be a part of helping kids get into the workforce, our locals get into the workforce. I had been doing mentoring programs with the MBA program mainly. I’ve been helping kids get ready for job interviews. So when the opportunity came at retirement, I knew I was going to form my own consulting company. I wanted to (do consulting) about half of the time, the other half I wanted to spend at the university getting kids ready for the job market, making sure that our locals get on a level playing field with students from elsewhere in the world.

Q: What do they need to do to make it a level playing field?

A: Personal branding, making sure that they’re communicating the right message about themselves and about their skills and their talents. Specifically within that, I really focus on storytelling to communicate core values. A lot of times local kids have been told to be humble, be quiet, don’t speak when they’re not spoken to. When you get them in class with a bunch of students from elsewhere, they can seem like they’re overwhelmed. I don’t think they’re overwhelmed; they’re just following cultural (practice) of letting others talk and being polite and being nice. And so what I do with them is work on three or four home-run stories that they can use to tell about themselves, their upbringing, their passion and most importantly their core values. Why are they the way they are and why should businesses choose them? We try to get them ready for their first career job. … And so we focus on an impressive opening that tells a story about their past, their motivation, their inspiration.

Q: Do you find it is sometimes difficult to draw them out?

A: In the first class, if I get everyone to cry, that’s a successful class. Because now I know they are telling me an emotional, deep story about themselves. Sometimes it takes two classes, but eventually we get to the bottom of the story.

… Local kids have tougher stories. Many single parents, many helping raise brothers and sisters and grandparents. People struggling to make ends meet have tougher stories. Not always, but most of the females have even tougher stories, such as domestic abuse. We really work on how they channel those challenges and turn them around into talking about the kind of strong person they are. During my days at Starwood, we hired 20 management trainees a year. … I always looked for the person who had the deepest story, who had overcome challenges. Because the hotel business is just keeping people happy, exceeding someone’s expectations at fixing problems. If you dealt with domestic abuse, whatever it is, someone who has lost their luggage, that’s easy.

Q: Have you had success stories?

A: I probably get three or four a week. There’s a kid working out at Bank of Hawaii at Hawaii Kai. He was a boxer. Real quiet, local guy. I got him to focus on how hard it is to be a boxer. They get punched in the face. Tell that story about how you pick yourself up and what you’ve done to really focus and be fit. He got the job as entry-level manager at Bank of Hawaii. He called to tell me that he got complimented by the people that were interviewing him — how well-prepared he was, how calm, how mature and how great his stories were.

Q: Tell me a little about your consulting business.

A: I work with hotel owners, many of whom I’ve had relationships with in the past, about repositioning or improving their product. Companies like Highgate, Avenue Capital. I also do some projects with PBR Hawaii, with Queen’s. I worked with a few projects with Kamehameha Schools. …

So the current active ones are the Highgate, at Pacific Beach. They have a few other hotels that they manage that I assist them on. I work with Avenue Capital, which owns the Sheraton Kona. I act as kind of an asset manager for them. Projects for the Queen’s Medical Center, Queen Emma Foundation. I’m just starting to do something with Haseko.

Q: How does it normally work, your role as a consultant?

A: I try to reflect on what the visitor growth would be, the visitor spending, what types of visitors; help them to build relationships with customers; give them a strategic viability and assist in making the process viable.

… Overall, it’s an exciting time for the visitor product. Look at Kuhio Avenue with the (International) Marketplace, the Ritz-Carlton and everything going on. It’s an exciting time for this kind of regeneration of off-beach work. I think that’s pretty significant.

Q: Speaking of on-beach, though, what about Kyo-ya’s Diamond Head Tower at the Moana Surfrider?

A: It’s a shame that they didn’t get the necessary approvals yet.

Q: Are they still working on that?

A: I don’t know their specific plan, so it wouldn’t be right for me to comment. But at the end of the day, it’s the exact same footprint. In fact, the footprint is a little smaller. That’s exactly what you want to do. Modernizing is the way to go. You’re not trying to build a new hotel on the beach, you’re trying to take down a wing that is physically inferior and put up a product that people want. What’s going to happen? People are going to spend more money. We’re going to drive more taxes. We’re going to drive more employment. I get the concern of the infringement of shoreline, but the hotel is already there.

Q: How bad is the hotel room shortage?

A: I think it’s very significant. We’ve got to continue to grow our visitor product. It’s got to be off beach. … I firmly believe the Ala Wai Golf Course should be — at least half that golf course should be — a stadium. Not necessarily a UH football stadium, but it should be a type of soccer, multi-use facility that would completely reenergize the back side of Waikiki. … Everybody wants to play here. We do have the fields in Waipio, but there are no hotels out there. If you had a stadium that had 25,000-30,000 seats, on part of the Ala Wai Golf Course and — every golfer will scream — make Ala Wai nine holes and make it a multi-sport, entertainment, concert facility. … if we want to increase revenue into the state, we just can’t keep building hotel rooms. But if we can match up reasons for visitors to come here, along with increasing some product, (like) sports facilities, you could.

Q: What were your thoughts on the proposed Sports Tourism Authority?

A: One of the most important things we can do is to have a sports commission that is independent, that can look at future growth needs. Sports completely matches Hawaii’s brand. Not gaming, not any other stuff. Sports. And not just professional sports. High school, Little League, all levels. … If you did some of that, imagine all those kids in Moiliili and Manoa, now you have a place to go. I grew up in Hilo. Boy’s Club was the thing. We were there every off day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. I have lifetime friends. Those types of sports community complexes don’t just drive visitor spending and entertainment, they pull the community together. They provide venues.